


settle down, it'll all be clear

by inmylife



Series: i'll find you [6]
Category: NU'EST, Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Reunions, jaehwan is shockingly good at being a dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 09:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15578925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inmylife/pseuds/inmylife
Summary: nearly fifteen years after minhyun leaves home and doesn't look back, his sister rings their doorbell.





	settle down, it'll all be clear

**Author's Note:**

> title from home by phillip phillips
> 
> for those who've read the rest of the series this is before 'turn on a light in your heart' chronologically but after the other works.

_ Jaehwan _

 

The woman who knocks at their door one day in September is pretty, delicate-featured, and most of all nervous-looking in a pink cotton shirt and a small canvas bag in hand. 

 

"Hello?" she greets. It's quiet and hesitant, like she's worried she'll get told off. "Is this Hwang  Minhyun's house?"

 

"Yes," Jaehwan says, guarded and cautious. "And who are you?" 

 

"Someone who wants to talk to him." 

 

Jaehwan rolls his eyes and shuts the door. 

 

He finds Minhyun in their room, arguing with someone on the phone. He hangs up with a huff of frustration and gives Jaehwan a glare. 

 

"Did I do something?" 

 

"No, it's just, this teacher - be nice to Jinyoung tonight, okay? He's had a rough day," is all Minhyun will say on the matter. 

 

"I'm always nice to Jinyoung," Jaehwan mutters, mostly to hide the pang of worry. "There's a lady at the door, hyung. Says she wants to talk to you." 

 

Minhyun throws his phone onto the mattress. The light coming in through the bedroom window catches on his wedding ring, and Jaehwan can't quite hold back a smile. It's been three months and he still isn't used to the fact that he's married. 

 

Jaehwan sits down next to Jinyoung on the living room couch and places his arm gently around the boy. He isn't used to calling Jinyoung his son either. Phineas and Ferb is on. Jinyoung leans into Jaehwan and laughs at a joke onscreen. Jaehwan isn't really paying attention. 

 

Minhyun comes in and opens the door again. Jinyoung keeps looking at his hands, watching them more than the screen, turning them over until Jaehwan reaches around his back and takes each hand in one of his own.

 

"Noona?" 

 

Wait. Jaehwan twists around, pulling Jinyoung's hands with him a little. "Hyung, you know her?"

 

"Oh. Jaehwan." Minhyun looks back and forth between his family on the couch and the woman at the door. "This is my sister. Sujin." He blinks back tears, is what it looks like to Jaehwan. "Noona, this is my husband. And my son."

 

"I know," says Sujin, sounding on the verge of tears herself. "I crashed your wedding." 

 

_ Sujin _

 

He's happy, now. 

 

He was happy at the wedding, too, all smiles and love as she watched him exchange rings  _ (for the second time) _ and wrap his son in a hug. That was the last time she saw him, and the time before was at a funeral, and before that the first wedding, and before he'd married Jonghyun… 

 

_ "Out, get out!" _

 

_ "Sohwan…" _

 

_ "Dad!" _

 

_ "Jahee, do you accept this?" _

 

_ "No, Sohwan, god no!" _

 

_ Minhyun rarely ever screams, but this time he does. "Fine! Fine, fine." _

 

_ He never slams the door either, but he does that too, now. _

 

His husband and his son are watching cartoons on television, leaned into each other, familiar-like. Sujin knows she's an outsider, knows she's made herself one by not stepping forward sooner, and she can see it in the way Kim Jaehwan looks back at her in confusion and then disgust. 

 

"Sujin," Minhyun asks, and his voice is wary and that's not how she wanted to hear his voice speaking to her for the first time in more than ten years but she'll take it because it's his voice and that's all she wanted after all, "noona, what are you doing here?" 

 

"I want to be part of your life," she gets out. She doesn't know why she feels ashamed - this is her brother and she has a right to ask. Maybe it's because she waited so long. Maybe it's because she did nothing that night Minhyun was fifteen and packed himself a bag. 

 

"And what do you mean," adds the husband, "you crashed our wedding?" 

 

Jinyoung is interested now. The cartoons play on, ignored, in the background. Kim Jaehwan puts an arm around his waist. 

 

"Aron oppa thought I had a right to know," Sujin manages. Minhyun pales. "He told me - he told me the first time, too. I even went to the funeral…" she adds in a whisper. "I'm so sorry, Minhyun-ah, I never got a chance to tell you I was sorry but I'm so sorry and congratulations on your wedding." 

 

"Out," Kim Jaehwan growls to her. "Sujin-ssi. Goodbye." 

 

Minhyun blinks and looks from Kim Jaehwan, now standing up, to her, stepping one foot back and out the door to the concrete of their not-porch, fingers hovering on the lintel.

 

"Sujin noona, I want you to leave," Minhyun says, sounding a lot less sure than Jaehwan. Her stomach drops. No,  _ no, _ she didn't want this to go this way. "But before you do, I want your phone number." 

 

Sujin exhales and writes it down on a pad of paper with a logo stamped on the top and explains that she lives in Siheung now, it's close, and does her best not to cry. 

 

On her way out the door, she meets eyes with Jinyoung. 

 

He doesn't recognize her.

 

She wishes someday he will.

 

_ Minhyun  _

 

She couldn't have known that she'd come at a bad time, she couldn't have known that Minhyun had just had a very frustrating conversation with Jinyoung's teacher and then with the elementary school administration, she couldn't have known that he has seemingly dozens of papers to fill out for this proposed adoption that Jinyoung and Jaehwan had finally talked him into, she couldn't have known that just last night he'd dreamt about slamming the door shut and then running into the graveyard instead of into Jonghyun's arms and cried into Jaehwan for half an hour before he could even think about going back to sleep. Sujin couldn't have known that, but that doesn't change the fact that Minhyun absolutely cannot process her reappearance right now. 

 

"She has no right," fumes Jaehwan, "no right! She did jack shit for you when your parents kicked you out and she has the, the  _ balls _ to reappear now,  _ now, _ when you don't need her, because 'oh I live in Siheung now and it's convenient for me'?" He hates to admit it, but Jaehwan's impression of Sujin is oddly accurate considering they'd met for the first time today. "Fuck Siheung-si and fuck her - oh, fu- i mean - cra - CRACKERS," he finally gets out, "Jinyoung, sorry, I didn't say any of that, go and do your homework or something?" 

 

Jinyoung's face shuts down. "Don't do your homework, I'll help you later," Minhyun tells him. "You haven't read those comics -"  _ Jonghyun's comics, _ his brain helpfully supplies "-that Jaehwan found in the basement yet, did you? Go read those, I'm so sorry, baby, but I think Jaehwan needs to blow off some steam." 

 

Disney Channel is still playing in the background, and Jaehwan angrily jabs the remote to turn it off as Jinyoung slips away. 

 

"He got yelled at for his handwriting today," Minhyun murmurs, "so I don't think bringing up school is the best idea at the moment. I told you - I thought I told you - did I?"

 

Minhyun feels absolutely lost, he can feel how hard his heart is beating and maybe even can feel the thrumming of the blood and adrenaline running under his skin, and a very large part of him wants to cry not just because of Sujin but because the administration doesn't understand anything about fine motor control and Jaehwan is so much angrier than Minhyun thinks he has any right to be and he's been filling out papers all week and if he has to look at that specific font ever again in his life he might scream, and his boss is a jerk who never lets him take time off, and he doesn't know what to do with this because he certainly doesn't hate his sister but he doesn't want to like her, either. 

 

She could have called. Maybe not when they were teenagers, but in college, maybe, or at his wedding - either of his weddings - or at the funeral. Why, why would she just show up on his doorstep, Aron - that traitor - certainly could have given her his number, at any of those events she could have said something to his face. 

 

Minhyun gives up and lets himself cry. 

 

_ Jaehwan _

 

"Hey, I'm sorry." He leans against the closed door. "I didn't know about school. Can I come in?"

 

"Y-yeah," Jinyoung stammers, so Jaehwan turns the knob. 

 

He's cocooned haphazardly under a blanket with a comic book in front of his head, positioned in a way that makes Jaehwan suspect he wasn't actually reading it. He looks sad, which is a new emotion for Jaehwan to see on him. He's used to shy, and frustrated, and tired, but never sad Jinyoung. 

 

"Who was she?" Jinyoung asks. "That lady that appa called noona. Is she from his job?"

 

"Nah, she's his real sister," Jaehwan explains. "They just haven't talked in a really long time." 

 

Jinyoung nods sagely like he'd known this all along. "I head appa crying," he confides. 

 

"Don't tell him that," Jaehwan deadpans. 

 

Jinyoung scoffs, which is a funny look on him considering he's seven and still looks confused and upset. "I'm not stupid." 

 

"No, you're not," Jaehwan says solemnly, before manhandling him into a hug and starting to tickle him. Jinyoung shrieks out of laughter. "I promise -" Jaehwan hugs him tight around his middle, prompting another laugh, "-that anyone -" another squeeze "-who calls you stupid-" squeeze "-will feel my glorious wrath!" 

 

"You sound like Sauron," Jinyoung giggles. 

 

"When did you watch Lord of the Rings?" Jaehwan knows he sounds scandalized and a little like Minhyun right now, but seriously, he's stunned. Minhyun would  _ never _ expose his child to Lord of the Rings at this age. Jaehwan knows the man he married, and the man he married is overprotective to a fault and also generally dislikes Tolkien. 

 

"In the hotel when we went to Jeju-do after you guys got married," Jinyoung shrugs offhandedly. "I watched like half of Harry Potter, too. It had On Demand." 

 

"Don't tell your dad?"

 

"Don't tell my dad," Jinyoung confirms, and they burst into giggles once again. 

 

Mission accomplished. 

 

_ Sujin _

 

One month later, she gets a text. 

 

**Unknown Number**

Let's get coffee sometime.

 

_ Minhyun _

 

He's ready.

**Author's Note:**

> yes, i used minhyun's real actual sister for this. if anyone disagrees with this let me know in the comments and i'll change her name and change the tag to OC. i don't know their parents' names so i just made up some for the flashback in sujin's section.
> 
> i accidentally wrote an entire subplot with more jaehwan and jinyoung bonding and i dont know where i was going with that but i like it so it's staying here sorry bout it!
> 
> i have three more works planned for this series - well, really two. the minhyun/jonghyun prequel that i will definitely write at some point i promise, a story about minhyun and jaehwan's honeymoon, and then a story set in this universe that's focused more on dongho than on minhwan and their family.
> 
> i am also considering doing a slight rewrite of this au that follows the exact plot of finding nemo (from which this au was originally derived). it would involve sort of darker stuff as when you translate the movie over to humans it gets scary pretty quick but i guess i'm curious as to how it would turn out. would you guys be interested in that? you're allowed to say no...
> 
> as always, find me on tumblr (zhengkis) or twitter (missyehana)!


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